Wow – I’m at 23 weeks now, and it’s been ages since I’ve posted last! I’ll attribute this to 4 other children, a family life, laundry, dishes, cooking, homeschooling, a home business, and … well, I’m sure there’s more, these are just the big ones. ;P

So much has happened, from wondering around 18 weeks if everything was okay to now knowing what our little one is and feeling them moving daily. I can’ t remember off the top of my head, or if I even posted it, but I’m thinking I started feeling movement around 16 weeks? So at 18 weeks when I could go days w/o feeling a thing, I was a little concerned.

This is where I’m really glad I kept this online journal of sorts my last pregnancy, because I saw that at 18 weeks then I was sure if I was feeling the baby move or not. I was also humored seeing my weight then at 18 weeks and what it was this time – about 12 to 14 lbs. more! I did start that pregnancy nursing a lot, so my start weight was less.

(If you saw that nursing boy then you’d know why I was so light!)

Just before 19 weeks, we went in for our *main* anatomy ultrasound. I was half and half on wanting to know the gender, but since we’ve had a war here between the siblings for a boy or girl, and especially from our daughter really wanting a girl on her side (of 3 to 1), we thought it best to know for ourselves.

This will allow us time to gently guide their conversations and thoughts to why it’s wonderful God is blessing our family with the child of HIS choice, rather than all of us being in the dark. So, while it was neat finding out, I am still a little disappointed of not being able to have that surprise at delivery. Well, I hope we aren’t surprised – that’d be strange!

Let’s see, around 19 weeks DH and I went to a homeschool convention as vendors with my company, Sonbeams, which was a lot of fun. We took our baby, now 2, since we were to be gone for 3 days. At the very end, we were alerted with alarms that there was a security threat and to evacute immediately! Talk about scary – I was by myself at the booth and couldn’t find my cell phone to take with me.

Thankfully, someone let me borrow theirs, and DH wanted ME to walk around to the back of the building to get to him! This wasn’t fun, but his point was good – he didn’t want us to be where all of the people were in case someone wanted to hurt a lot of people at once. We never really found out what happened, but I was very grateful that the Lord kept us safe, and brought us home safely to our little ones at home.

The short trip was nice, but I sure did miss my babies!

It’s been really hard keeping the gender a secret. We’re going to have to bring down boy and girl clothes to be washed, and had to flip a coin to see which box came down first. Since girl won, DD was excited. She’s loved oohing and aahing over all the pink clothes, and loved even more that she wore some of them. Baby doll dressing was fun, too. DS is now ready for the boy box to come down, but after carrying down the girl one, I decided he’ll have to wait for Daddy to bring down the boy box!

At this point, I’ve gained 18 lbs, and all seems to be well. The ultrasound showed that the baby was 35% percentile, so it will be like DD and DS3 size wise. Small is good for births, you know. ;P

I’ve enjoyed hearing people’s guesses – and overall, more people have been wrong than right. Less than a handful have guessed and actually been pretty convinced they were right!

Why are we not telling? Simple, we want it to be a surprise for the kids. It would just be too hard for everyone to know and it not slip somehow back to them what it is. So only a 3 or 4 people that we never see know, cause I would’ve exploded otherwise!

I’ve had contractions on and off, more off the past two weeks, which is good since I usually start dilating around 32 weeks. It’s really getting exciting to think of snuggling up with a sweet little one again – children are truly a blessing from the Lord! It’s even more a blessing that our children realize that and are so eager to meet their new sibling. Hey, they’re even talking about future babies!

Coming up - homeschool in the summer, sugar test in 4 weeks, a birthday boy (can’t believe my baby boy will be 7!!!) in 3 weeks, Father’s Day (so blessed for a husband that desires for his family to follow the Lord!!!, and heat, heat, and more heat – with humidity!

Little Mommy